Plane carrying 188 people crashes after taking off from Jakarta

A Lion Air plane.
(Image credit: Adek Berry/AFP/Getty Images)

Shortly after takeoff from Jakarta Monday morning, a Lion Air Boeing 737 plane carrying 188 passengers and crew members crashed into the sea, Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency said.

Search and rescue boats are now in the area of the crash, and have collected the plane's fuselage. The flight was headed to Pangkal Pinang, the main city in the Bangka Belitung Islands off Sumatra, and was scheduled to take a little more than an hour. It is unclear if there are any survivors. Lion Air is a low-cost Indonesian airline.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.